When he was nine, he watched as his mother and brother were killed before him. At thirteen, he led a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By fifteen, he intends to be king…

It’s time for Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath to return to the castle he turned his back on, to take what’s rightfully his. Since the day he hung pinned on the thorns of a briar patch and watched Count Renar’s men slaughter his mother and young brother, Jorg has been driven to vent his rage. Life and death are no more than a game to him – and he has nothing left to lose. But treachery awaits him in his father’s castle. Treachery and dark magic. No matter how fierce his will, can one young man conquer enemies with power beyond his imagining?

Prince of Thorns is part of the grimdark fantasy subgenre that’s raised it’s head more in the 21st century. The genre is characterized by bleakness and violence, and often the main characters are either antiheroes or not heroes at all, but right bastards. This book is the first proper grimdark novel I’ve read, and the atmosphere definitely matches the genre title. The book also turned out not to exactly be high fantasy, but I’ll count it towards my challenge goal nevertheless.

I have to say that I wasn’t enamored. I was interested, but not invested – interested in what was going to happen and what the deal with Jorg was, but not invested in the characters or the world. I could easily put the book down for a couple of days. Everything and everyone was just so unpleasant that I felt no emotional connection with the story. I can see what Lawrence was going for – a sort of fantasy version of A Clockwork Orange, raising questions of morals with an immoral main character – but A Clockwork Orange handled the theme better. There were some clear parallels linking the two books, especially in their final chapters (quoted below).

Prince of Thorns:

“Then he goes back to his wooden soldier, making him march, running him here and there, charging at shadows. […] I was like [that] little wooden soldier, running in wild and meaningless circles. […] When enough days stand between you and the person you were, you’re strangers. Maybe that’s what being a grown up is.”

A Clockwork Orange:

“Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being… like one of these malenky toys you viddy being sold in the streets… made out of tin and with a spring inside and then a winding handle on the outside and you wind it up grrr grrr grrr and off it itties, like walking, O my brothers. But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot help what it is doing. Being young is like being one of these malenky machines.”

Characters
Essentially, there were no characters except for Jorg, which was perhaps one of the main reasons I couldn’t really connect with the book. I mean, there was his band of brigands, but none of them were fleshed out enough to be regarded as solid characters by themselves, with Makin and the Nuban coming closest. No, the book was very strictly about Jorg, the main character with absolutely no moral compass. That, of course, made it hard to be interested in the book when it came to the characters.

Plot
Perhaps I was a bit hyped up as regards to the twists of this novel – mentions about “pieces beginning to fall into place” in reviews, but I didn’t really find the plot points very surprising. I mean, all of the clues were there quite clearly, from pretty early on. Perhaps I just had the wrong expectations. I have to say, though, that the plot was intriguing enough to keep me reading even while I wasn’t that interested in what happened to the characters. The theme and plot level was definitely stronger than the characterization.

VerdictPrince of Thorns was a bit disappointing continuation of my 2014 High Fantasy Challenge, especially after loving The Name of the Wind so much. Still, I might read the rest of the trilogy. Someone on GoodReads gave the first book two stars (with pretty much the same issues that I had), but gave the second book four stars. So, I’ll give the second book a chance, but I’m not in any hurry to do so. I give Prince of Thorns 2 out of 5 stars.

Last week I posted

What I will read next

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette KowalThe Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Last week I stumbled upon this read-a-thon called AYearAThon. Some people came up with a year’s worth of montly read-a-thons for 2014. So, once a month, there is a week-long read-a-thon with a set theme. You don’t have to take part in all of them if you don’t want to – you can just do the month/months of your choosing. You can find more info about the YearAThon here, and join the GoodReads group here.

April’s theme is Re-Reads, and it takes place next week, from April 7th to 13th. I found the theme interesting, since there are a couple of books that I’ve meant to re-read for a while. I think I will also take part at least in May’s Finish/Catch Up On A Series and July’s Classics read-a-thons.

I need to re-read Shades of Milk and Honey so that I can continue with the Glamourist Histories series, and I’ve wanted to re-read The Three Musketeers (and all its sequels) for a while now. I thought this might be a great time for that! I hope to finish both of these next week, but since The Three Musketeers is over 800 pages long, it might be wishful thinking. Let’s see how I’ll do!

This post is linked at “WWW Wednesdays”, a weekly reading meme hosted by Should Be Reading. All the links take you to GoodReads.

I am currently reading

Prince of Thorns
(The Broken Empire #1)By: Mark LawrenceGenre: Grimdark high fantasy
First published in 2011

I just started reading this book; I’ve actually only read the first chapter. I have to say this is the grimdarkest fantasy I’ve ever picked up, with very morally reprehensible, violent things happening right at the beginning. Yet I still want to read this. Why? Because Robin Hobb gave this 5 out of 5 stars. That’s a pretty big recommendation right there. There’s also a blurb from her on the cover of the book. This is what she said in her GoodReads review:

I had to grit my teeth several times to get through this, and more than once I wondered, “Why was this recommended to me?” Then the pieces began to fall into place. Not a tale for the faint of heart, but well worth it to prevail. Trust me.

So I will trust her, and believe that all this is going somewhere.

I recently finished

City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments #3) by Cassandra ClareMr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

What might be next

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

I have borrowed this from the library and should get to it soon. I loved the author’s short story in the Zombies Vs. Unicorns anthology, which is why I picked this one up.

For the year 2014, I chose 10 adult fantasy books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while, and set myself a challenge to read them all. This comes after my epic fail of 2013, when I read only 3 (!) adult high fantasy novels during the whole year. So these books are all set in a separate fantasy world, unlike the modern/urban fantasy that I’ve gravitated more towards the past couple of years (which features fantastical elements in our modern world).

Maija’s Top 10 Adult High Fantasy Books to Read In 2014

1. The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle #1) by Patrick Rothfuss *
2. The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard #1) by Scott Lynch *
3. Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders #1) by Robin Hobb *
4. Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire #1) by Mark Lawrence * (turned out not to be high fantasy)
5. The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2) by Brandon Sanderson
6. Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera #1) by Jim Butcher *
7. The Last Wish (The Witcher #1) by Andrzej Sapkowski *
8. The Blade Itself (The First Law #1) by Joe Abercrombie
9. The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany
10. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (might change, as this could be counted as a children’s book)

The asterisk after the title means I own the book. The links read to reviews of read books.
Check out the challenge shelf with all the books on GoodReads.

So, most of these are pretty new books, ’cause I somewhat dropped out of the high fantasy loop during the 21st century (apart from A Song of Ice and Fire). There are a couple of fantasy classics thrown in, which are great for not being part of a series! So I do realize that almost all of the books listed are the start of a series, but that is just how it goes with high fantasy novels. Perhaps I’ll get excited enough with one or more of the books that I’ll end up reading the whole of that series this year! And if I don’t care for some of them, I’ll just drop the series, but I really don’t see that happening.

What are your resolutions for the year 2014? What do you think about the books I’ve chosen to read?

I have so many unread books on my shelves that I was trying to curb my book buying during the end of the year. This haul post is for the past three months put together. In October and December I only bought one physical book, as well as some ebooks from winter sales. In November, though, I went to London and picked up quite a few books… ’cause, you know, London.

Yeah, I went a bit overboard in London. That’s what comes from visiting both Forbidden Planet and Waterstones. I ended up spending most of my trip budget on these books, but honestly, I didn’t have anything else in mind to spend the money on. Sorcery & Cecelia is a book I’ve read a couple of times and loved, so I wanted my own copy. And I already own one copy of the fourth Courtney Crumrin graphic novel collection, but that didn’t stop me from buying the hardcover, coloured special edition. The other books I haven’t read yet, though I glanced at the Shakespearean Star Wars book and found it awesome & hilarious! (I also bought and instantly read the first issue of the new Sandman series, not pictured here.)

Other Bought Books

In October I grew my Kiernan collection by ordering a used copy of The Red Tree from Better World Books. It is in wonderful condition, just like new. In November, I was going to travel by train, and realized at the station that I had brought nothing to read for the journey! That’s when I picked up Snuff from a little pocket book shop at the station. :) Disaster averted! And in December I bought All These Things I’ve Done on sale from Bookdepository, since I’d heard Misty from The Book Rat say good things about it in her videos.

Then were the Amazon Christmas sales, and I bought a couple of Kindle books. Despite disliking the second novel, I bought The Mislaid Magician to finish reading the Cecelia & Kate series. And since I’ve never read Octavia E. Butler, and I got the whole series for $2.99, I bought the Patternmaster omnibus to try her out. I also picked up a collection of Saladin Ahmed’s short stories for free.